Samsung Galaxy S4 buzz significantly trailing iPhone 5

The latest Harris Buzz report for April is now available. See here to download the full, free report.

This is now our 27th edition of Buzz. Each month we take a national poll via the Harris PollTM Omnibus and test awareness and excitement of the latest news stories and releases in technology and entertainment.

One of the most interesting releases we tested in the latest report is the unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S4.

We can take a look at whether it's created the same sort of Buzz as other flagship phones, including the iPhone 5.




Let's take a look at where Samsung's new flagship smartphone ranks for excitement against some other notable smartphone and tablet releases over the last couple of years...

Samsung are the leading smartphone seller right now and it launched the Galaxy S4 with a heap of razzmatazz. We see its Excitement Buzz towards the top of the list but not right at the top. iPhone 5's buzz at its time of release is significantly higher.

I thought the S4 announcement was significant in that I can't recall a launch from any other smartphone/tablet company that could rival it for the level of anticipation it generated, aside from iPhone and iPad announcements. And the launch could hardly be described as subtle - it was a huge fanfare event from Samsung.

While Samsung is substantially outselling Apple in the smartphone business, we do see however that it still needs to catch up for Excitement in the general market. Bear in mind this is national polling, not polling of smartphone purchase intenders. Apple has now had a solid five years or so of fanfare events to launch its mobile products, so Samsung needs to continue to generate the same sort of buzz for its launches in the future.

The full report, which also includes a host of other launches and news stories (see below) can be downloaded for free by clicking on this link.

And here is the full list of stuff we included in the April Buzz report:

·         BBC Television Centre closes with Madness concert

·         BBC to premiere a new Peter Kay sitcom on BBC iPlayer

·         BioShock Infinite video game

·         Comic Relief 2013 raises record £75m

·         The Croods movie

·         Dell company receives bid for a takeover

·         Gears of War: Judgement video game

·         New David Bowie album ‘The Next Day’

·         O2 launches ‘Tu Go’ app to challenge Skype

·         Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone unveiled

·         SimCity video game

·         Trance movie

·         Yahoo! buys teenager’s Summly mobile app for £18m

PlayStation 4 announcement - measuring the Buzz

Harris' latest Buzz report is out.

It includes the Buzz for Sony's announcement in late February of PlayStation 4.

The full report is free and you can see it here.

The results are more than decent, but not spectacular.

But Sony's announcement does easily beat the ratings achieved by the Wii U launch, and bear in mind we're comparing an announcement for a launch with an actual launch.

As always, released monthly, Harris Buzz measures, awareness and levels of discussion and excitement of the latest releases in news in entertainment and technology using a nationally representative Harris Poll of GB aged 16-64.

Sony's announcement was late February and the fieldwork for this edition of Buzz was early March, so just about perfect timing to appreciate the Buzz for it.

Let's take a look at the Buzz for "Sony announce PlayStation 4 games console"...

Things look a little better when we cut these Buzz ratings by age. Among 16-24s the levels of awareness, discussion and excitement are 67%, 50% and 42% respectively.

To put the results into context we can compare to our all-time list. We've been measuring news and product releases for over 2 years now, so we have lots of things to compare with.

Focusing on Excitement Buzz, here's a selection of benchmarks (you can see everything in the full report):

Bear in mind I am only showing a selection of the 200+ items we've looked at in our series of Buzz reports over the last couple of years. 

The PS4 launch ranks in the top quartile of everything we've tested for excitement when we compare it to everything we've tested to date. In the selected list above you can see it doesn't get close to our top-ranked event (London 2012 opening), but it'll take something exceptional to beat that benchmark. 

It's fairer to compare it to other high profile events - and you can see it's on a par with some Apple launches. The most interesting benchmarks are with Kinect, Vita and Wii U. Bear in mind though we are comparing an announcement of a launch to actual launches. 

It must be pleasing for Sony to see their announcement well ahead of the Wii U launch for excitement. And I've blogged before about how disappointing the Wii U launch has gone.

So, good solid results for PlayStation 4. Not spectacular results but a good foundation from which to build up to its launch later this year.

We'll be measuring PlayStation 4 again as more significant news comes out. And of course we will be measuring the Xbox announcement in May.

All of the news stories we tested in the latest edition of Buzz are listed below (and you can click here to get the full report).

2013 Brits music awards

2013 Oscars awards

BT agrees to buy ESPN’s UK TV channels to broaden its sports coverage

Cloud Atlas movie

Crysis 3 video game

Google unveil a touchscreen “Chromebook Pixel” premium laptop

HTC unveil HTC One flagship smartphone

One Direction hit number 1 with Comic Relief single “One Way or Another”

Samsung unveil new Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet

Sky buys O2’s broadband/fixed line business

Sony announce PlayStation 4 games console

The new Tomb Raider video game

Wreck-It Ralph movie

SimCity and Tomb Raider FAIL

Two major games, both much anticipated, were released this week: the reboot of Tomb Raider and SimCity.

We'll have both of them measured in our upcoming Harris Buzz report, ready in a couple of weeks time.

But both titles have had major launch issues.

SimCity has taken one hell of a panning, not from critics but with gamers annoyed with EA insistence on an always-on online DRM solution (for what is basically an offline single player game). A pathetic user metacritic score of 1.6/10.0 at the time of writing is an indication of people's frustration. An always-on DRM you need only via Origin is annoying enough for many, but EA's servers unable to cope with demand is an own goal, as you can see below. Amazon even suspended its sales.

Tomb Raider looks pretty lush. Well that's what I've seen on YouTube at least because I can't play it on Steam using my i7/680GTX. A patch and a new driver is needed (although there is a registry fix for those who don't want to wait).

This is my experience of Tomb Raider to date:

All of this makes me wonder why I ever bother pre-ordering PC games.

Wait for a few months, get all the patches and fixes and get it for half the price and zero frustration.

All I need to do that is to acquire some patience.


UPDATE: Tomb Raider patch released, all okay. EA apologises, offers free game.

HMV closures gets the public talking in latest Buzz survey

Our latest Harris Buzz report is out, the 25th edition. Click here to get your free copy of the full report.

Among all the things we tested, the thing that has got most people talking is the news that HMV stores are going into administration.

Nearly 9 in 10 of the GB general public told us they were aware of the news and nearly 3 in 5 people said they have discussed it with their friends or family.

This makes it one of the most buzziest things for discussion we've ever covered in our 25 series of Buzz reports stretching back to 2010.

Take a look at the all-time Discussion Buzz list (top 25):

Top 25 Discussion Buzz % of GB public who have discussed...
London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony	75%
Jimmy Savile scandal	72%
Phone hacking scandal	66%
EURO 2012 final	61%
Skyfall movie	60%
HMV stores go into administration	58%
Andy Murray loses Wimbledon final	57%
Final Harry Potter film	55%
Stars at Jubilee concert	54%
2012 Olympic torch relay	54%
Steve Jobs dies	52%
The Voice new series	51%
Britain’s Got Talent new series	50%
Michael Jackson’s doctor guilty	48%
London 2012 tickets on sale	47%
Blockbuster administration	47%
BlackBerry outage	46%
The Hobbit movie	46%
Felix Baumgartner skydive	45%
Brits 2012	44%
Jimmy Carr tax story	43%
PS3 accounts hacked	43%
3D TV sets	42%
Fifty Shades of Grey	41%
Government email spying	41%

You'll also see that Blockbuster facing the same fate also gets into our Top 25 all-time list.

It's not surprising to see HMV get so high in our list. While so many of us have stopped using the High Street for our music, games and videos (the reason for its demise), it was really important for many of us a while back, before we migrated.

And there is a significant proportion of the population who haven't yet migrated to Amazon, Apple, Spotify et al who now have very few choices left in High Street to get their physical entertainment.

Yes, there are plenty of ways of getting entertainment, more than ever before, but if you're someone who isn't happy with shopping online and/or using digital services, then it's a sad day indeed to see such an important chain go under.

The whole list of things we covered in Buzz#25 is listed below. Click here to get the full, free report.

BlackBerry 10 smartphone revealed

Blockbuster stores go into administration

DMC: Devil May Cry video game

Facebook announce ‘Graph search’

HMV stores go into administration

JJ Abrams announced as Director of new Star Wars film

Lincoln movie

News International wins rights to show Premier League highlights on internet and mobile devices

Nokia targets Spotify with launch of premium Nokia Music+ service

Rapid rise of ‘Snapchat’ mobile app for sharing images or videos that disappear after a few seconds

Sony unveils Xperia Z, ‘thinnest’ tablet

Twitter launches ‘Vine’ micro-video sharing service

Zero Dark Thirty movie

Wii U launch fails to generate excitement at launch

I've been a bit late in updating this blog and please be aware that two Harris Buzz reports from December have been released.

Of all the things we tested, undoubtedly the most interesting is looking at GB consumer awareness and excitement of Nintendo's Wii U console launch.

The figures from our Buzz survey aren't going to please Nintendo...

Let's take a look at where the Wii U ranks in terms of awareness and excitement, benchmarked against all the other releases and news items we've covered in Buzz over more than two years.

Firstly let's take a look at how the Wii U launch did at generating awareness, the prerequisite for success.

38% isn't poor awareness. But if you look at the most recent Buzz report, it ranks 114th out of the 287 releases and news items we've covered to date in our series of reports (see page 12).

What about excitement?

At 15%, this places the Wii U launch at joint 105th out of 287 releases and news items covered thus far.

Let's take a look at which other launches have been more (and less) successful than Wii U over the last couple of years in generating an Excitement Buzz. We look at lots of things in Buzz, so in this list we've only included device launches and game releases (so nothing about Saville, Oscars, Michael Jackson, or anything like that) so that we have a fairer comparison.

	Excitement
3D TV sets	29%
iPad 2	29%
iPhone 5	25%
The New iPad	25%
iPad	24%
Amazon Kindle Touch	23%
Nintendo 3DS	22%
Smart TV	22%
Xbox Kinect	22%
Windows 8 launched	21%
4G UK	21%
Call of Duty: MW3	21%
iPhone 4S	21%
Call of Duty: Black Ops	20%
iPhone 4	20%
iPad Mini	19%
Kindle Fire UK	19%
Samsung Galaxy Note	19%
PS Vita	19%
Amazon Kindle Fire	19%
Kindle eBook	19%
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2	18%
Nexus 7 tablet	18%
Samsung Galaxy S3	18%
Google Chromebooks	18%
Nokia E7 smartphone	17%
Sony Ericsson Xperia Play	17%
3D Blu-ray players	17%
FIFA 13	16%
BlackBerry PlayBook	16%
Samsung Galaxy Tab	16%
LA Noire	16%
Portal 2	16%
Nintendo Wii U	15%
Assassin’s Creed III	15%
Res Evil: Retribution	15%
HTC One launched	15%
Battlefield 3	15%
Nintendo  ‘3DS XL’	14%
Kinect: Star Wars	14%
Resident Evil 6 trailer	14%
Kinect for PCs launch	14%
Fable III	14%
Surface launch	13%
Batman: Arkham City	13%
Crysis 2	13%
Halo: Reach	13%
Halo 4	12%
Hitman: Absolution	12%
Res Evil 6 game	12%
Optimus 4X HD	12%
Microsoft SmartGlass	12%
Mass Effect 3	12%
HP TouchPad	12%
Motorola Xoom	12%
Far Cry 3 game	11%
Nexus 4	11%
Nexus 10	11%
Sleeping Dogs	11%
Max Payne 3	11%
Apple TV	11%
Fallout: New Vegas	11%
New Super Mario	10%
Lumia 920	10%
Darksiders ll	10%
Guild Wars 2	10%
Microsoft Xbox Music	10%
Project Glass	10%
Gears of War 3	10%
Sony Move	10%
Google TV	10%
Football Manager ‘13	9%
Madden NFL 13	9%
Diablo 3	9%
Rage	9%
Ouya Console	8%
Dishonored	7%
Deus Ex: HR	7%
Dell Streak	6%
NBA 2K13	5%
World of Warcraft free	4%

As you can see, the Wii U console launch puts in on par with some hefty big selling games, but it's way off the excitement levels we see for the illustrious handsets and tablets. It also trails the launch of the Vita and Kinect.

This is disappointing.

It's early days of course. The console battle is fought over years rather than weeks. My earlier post about the Wii being "doomed" generated a fair amount of criticism, especially as pre-sales were healthy boosted by an impressive range of launch titles. But more recent sales figures are suggesting the Wii U is struggling and with impending news of Sony's and Microsoft's next consoles for release later in 2013 can only make things worse for Nintendo.

So I go return to the theme from my earlier post: Is the Wii U doomed?

Well "doomed" is a bit melodramatic. It sold well at launch and it received plaudits as well as a little head-scratching by what it was all about. It may be that its killer apps are in development and we'll all be blown away by how creative the mixed use of controllers and tablets will be. And let's not underestimate Nintendo who have done more to pioneer in this industry than anyone else.

But the data is showing very clearly that it has not really caught the imagination of the the public. 

Not yet anyway.